


The Secret Tattoo

by BronzedViolets



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canonical Character Death, Complete, First Time, Harry Potter References, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Mary is a villain (sorry), Potter!Lock, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, UST, mary has a secret, wanking, wet dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-04-30 02:55:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5147693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BronzedViolets/pseuds/BronzedViolets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is back, and I’m not talking about Moriarty… </p><p>***</p><p>“John, listen to me. I think I made a mistake. This is very important - I need you to describe Mary’s tattoo.”</p><p>“What? Slow down Sherlock. You are not making any sense”</p><p>“The tattoo John! Describe it to me” Sherlock is virtually shouting now.</p><p>“Relax. Alright. It is a skull snake thing”</p><p>“John…” The warning in his voice is evident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Many Happy Returns

**Author's Note:**

> I unfortunately still do not own any of the characters and Ariane Devere and her transcripts still rock my world. Thanks again Styky for your encouragement. If anyone wants to Britpick for me that would be great! 
> 
> This is a cross-over with another major fandom but I think you will have more fun figuring it out for yourselves
> 
> If you are interested follow me on Tumblr @ BronzedViolets
> 
> P.S. I will trying to be posting a new chapter every week or two.
> 
> Update 2017-03-23 - Beta done by the incomparable ConcentratedAwesome

Hammersmith, London

Mary stands in her tidy kitchen making bread, the sun-light streaming through the window like honey. She hums softly to herself as she kneads. The dough under her hand slowly becomes elastic as the gliadin and glutenin proteins in the flour expand to form strands of gluten. She likes to think that she is changing the dough on the molecular level with the force of her will alone.  When she feels the dough has been worked enough, she reaches for a tea towel to wipe her hands. 

A searing pain skitters across her forearm causing her to release a low “oomph” of surprise, the tea towel fluttering to the ground like a wounded bird.

“You all right, love?” calls John from the sitting room.

“Yes, just knocked my elbow.” She rubs her smarting arm while turning away to block his view.

John shrugs and returns to the newspaper, her distress already forgotten.

 

Topčider Forest, Serbia 

Sherlock runs faster than he has ever run before. His lungs are burning, badly healed broken ribs sending stabs of agony through his chest with every step. He'd heard whispers before but of course he ignored them. Superstitious nonsense the lot of it, he thought. The bodies were harder to explain, though. He hacked into the server and read the pathology reports himself. He even broke into the little morgue in Antwerp, Belgium, sure that something had been missed. No one just ‘suddenly stops’  being alive. 

Now running for his life through the darkened woods, he is inclined to re-evaluate his conclusions on the matter. 

Trying to keep his mental map oriented as he dodges skeletal branches, he does not see the figure emerge from the copse before him until it is almost too late. He manages to stop short of a full on collision, feet skidding on the decomposing leaves. 

It is a young man ( _approximately 17 years of age, likely English from the look of his trainers)_ with a long face and shaggy ginger hair. He is just standing there agog with what looks like an old fashioned cigarette lighter in one hand and a knobbly stick in the other. 

Sherlock's brain stutters to a halt like a record needle skipping the track. Of all the things he would expect to see whilst being chased through a moonlit forest in the wilds of Serbia, a fellow UK citizen taking a stroll ranked exceedingly low on the list. 

He takes a gasping breath, gathering his tattered wits around him. 

“Run!”  He tries to shout but it comes out more as a pained wheeze. The young man looks for a split second like he is about to argue but thinks the better of it and turns abruptly back the way he came ( _used to taking orders, army? unlikely, too young, hair too long_ ) Sherlock crashes after him, clumsy in his exhaustion. Behind them an inhuman howl rends the chill air.

A few paces later the teenager comes to an abrupt halt and Sherlock nearly crashes into him for a second time. 

“Wha.. What are you doing?”

The stranger does not answer but instead grips his arm with bruising force. 

That is when everything goes sideways. Sherlock feels like he is being crushed in a vise, the stars winking out above him one by one. The pressure on his eardrums is intense and he tries to blink, tries to swallow and…POP.

The man releases his arm and Sherlock stumbles, disoriented, feet slipping on the rocky ground. The forest is gone and the temperature is at least 6 degrees centigrade warmer. They are standing on a rocky beach, in what looks at first blush to be Cornwall.

Sherlock considers, not for the first time, that he may have lost his mind.

 

Belgrade, Serbia (Two Hours Prior)

Sherlock is so close to being finished he can almost taste it, bittersweet on the back of his tongue.  Tea and cigarettes and Baker Street. An eternity of chasing rumours and it is down to this. There is one last man, and he can go home, home to London, home to John. 

The man’s name is Karkaroff. He is a neat and fussy looking Russian whose most distinguishing feature appears to be that where ever he goes there is talk of people disappearing and worse. What is ‘worse’  than presumably finding their way into an unmarked grave Sherlock is never able to ascertain.  

Their paths first crossed on a damp spring morning in New Delhi. Sherlock had spent the first year of his exile blazing across the continent with the fury of the just. An empire had fallen before him like so many cards. Only one man was left, the last link in Moriarty’s web, but oh, was he clever. Mycroft’s sources had been able to metaphorically point him in the right direction but people were strangely reluctant to speak of him.

It was summer before he was able to find an ancient woman in Hamburg who would even whisper what he had long suspected. That Karkaroff had indeed held a privileged post with ‘wer nicht benannt werden kann,’ the name no one says. Sherlock was inclined to believe her as she was found dead in her flat less than an hour after telling him.

By the time autumn creeps in, Sherlock has been following him from city to city for almost four months and has only caught a glimpse of him twice. Once in a spice market in Amsterdam and once across a crowded train car in Brussels. Every time he thinks he has him cornered, the man disappears without a trace only to pop up somewhere else a few weeks later. Sherlock has not been able to figure out how he is able to escape so easily without leaving a paper trail but this lends credence to his theory that Karkaroff is the remaining vessel of Moriarty’s power. 

As the days get shorter he tracks his quarry from Belgium to Munich and finally to Rakovica on the outskirts of Belgrade. Karkaroff is staying in a stone shack on a tumbledown lot that backs directly onto the Topčider forest. While it's clear that it is the same man he glimpsed in Antwerp months prior, the intervening time has taken a terrible toll. This man looks haunted; he must have lost at least a stone and the yellowing of his eyes speaks of heavy alcohol use.  At the sight of him Sherlock feels a burst of feral joy he knows is more than ‘a bit not good'. There is still something thrilling about knowing he is paying back some of the suffering heaped upon his own. To know that Karkaroff is aware he is being hunted, that his allies are falling around him, that he is the only one left. Although it looks like vodka and terror might finish the job before Sherlock can, he did not survive this long ( _1 year 11 months and 8 days_ ) by being careless. He knows it just takes one mistake and John would suffer for it.

Sherlock watches the shack for two days, begging on the streets during the day and sleeping in the attic above an abandoned repair shop at night. In a city with the largest homeless population in Serbia he was just one more vagrant with unwashed hair, a knife in his pocket, and secrets held behind his teeth. If no one noticed that his eyes shone with a fever borne of scathing intelligence and not poverty then it was their loss.

On the eve of the 3rd night Sherlock decides it is time to act. He has meticulously plotted the man’s movements such as they are. His target sleeps until noon, makes an unsteady journey to the off-license at two, begins drinking at half four, and is passed out on a foul smelling mattress by quarter past nine. Tomorrow night before moonrise he will simply slip in through the back door, confirm that he is the last of Moriarty’s men and administer an injection of a long acting sedative. If he is lucky he will figure out how Karkaroff has been killing people without an apparent cause of death. By the time INTERPOL arrives, Sherlock plans to be half-way out of the country. 

***

Sherlock picks the battered lock with care and steals into the back room. He has taken two steps when he realizes that despite his meticulous planning he has made a grave error. 

He has interrupted Karkaroff in the process of violently bleeding to death. The analytical part of his brain is madly trying to reason how someone could be gutted in complete silence. It is as though there was a bubble surrounding the rancid sitting room that no sound could escape from. The less analytical part of him is gibbering in terror at the sight of a monster doing the gutting. He has the impression of impossibly long teeth and hooked nails before the two sides of his brain start working together and he begins to run. 

 

Somewhere in Cornwall 

Panting heavily, Sherlock glances around. In the distance he can just make out a moonlit cottage, a plume of smoke rising sedately from the chimney. He blinks several times in succession and re-examines his surroundings. They are still in Cornwall.  Giving that up as a bad job, he turns to assess his companion. 

The young man is rocking backwards and forwards on his heels, still clutching his stick. He appears to be clearly shaken by their flight. Taking a deep breath, the stranger finally speaks.

“Sorry about the side-along. Are you all right? He didn't bite you, did he?”

Sherlock has no idea what ‘side-along’ means, has no wish to even contemplate being ‘bitten’ and unfortunately still appears to be in Cornwall despite an additional fit of blinking. He falls back on his time tested strategy of ‘barrage them with deductions'.

“What were you doing in Serbia? You are a UK citizen, you were raised in Devon, one of at least five children, you were educated in Scotland, and were recently injured probably under traumatic circumstances, not military due to your age, but your reactions indicate combat experience. The only other possibility is that you are a member of some type of paramilitary organization. You clearly think of your self as a moral person - you saved me, after all - so on balance of probability I would say you are a member of a group styling themselves freedom fighters.”

“Blimey, that was amazing! Are you a Legilimens? Is that why You-know-who is after you?”

“What?” Sherlock winces at the utter banality of the question. For once in his life Sherlock is having trouble following a conversation and he is not sure how to proceed. He recognizes the root words, _legens-_ Latin for reader, and _mens_ \- Latin for mind but what that has to do with Moriarty and the man (monster?) that was chasing him he cannot even begin to theorize.

“Did you just ask me if I was a mind reader? No wait, of course you did. You just ‘teleported’ us to Cornwall and you think I have psychic powers?” His voice rises in pitch of its own volition and he is forced to admit that he is starting to sound vaguely hysterical.

“Oi, how did you know this was Cornwall?”

“It’s obvious, just look at the particulate matter on the beach.” Sherlock stops himself before he can continue. Clearly this man’s lack of observational skills was not the pressing issue here. He concludes that he must be experiencing a break from reality, possibly brought on by exhaustion, and decides to start playing along until this starts making sense or he ( _hopefully_ ) wakes-up in hospital somewhere.  

“How do you know about Moriarty?”

“Who?”

“'The name no one says' or, as you put it so succinctly, 'You know who'" Sherlock mimes air-quotes for extra emphasis. 

“Look, mate, I know far more about ‘You know who’ than I would care to, but I have never heard of a Moriarty. Is he one of the Death Eaters or is he one of Greyback’s Snatchers?”

Sherlock grabs his lank curls and tugs, trying to draw some patience from a yet untapped reserve. He is clearly in the midst of a psychotic delusion and instead of a proper bugs under his skin/the walls are melting trip, he is stuck re-enacting a second rate comedy skit from BBC.

“You just asked me if my ‘Legilimency’ is why You-know-who was after me.” He enunciates each word clearly hoping that somehow that would end this train-wreck of a conversation. 

“So you _are_ a Legilimens.”  

“Are you an idiot?” 

“So you’re not a Legilimens? Was that a Revealing charm then? It's a cracking good one!”

Sherlock’s temper has at this time reached its absolute breaking point and the words come boiling out of him. 

“I am a consulting detective, Moriarty committed suicide, I faked my own death, John needs me, and I was trying to have a criminal named Karkaroff arrested but some _thing_ got to him first. I was just chased by the aforementioned _thing,_ and now we are in Cornwall. Also, I think I have lost my mind. Is that enough to be going on or shall I continue?”

His erstwhile rescuer pales under his freckles.

“I think we need to talk to Bill.” 


	2. The Empty Hearse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had almost two years to imagine their reunion and while in several possible scenarios there was much shouting and profanity, he had (stupid, stupid) not entertained the possibility that John would not forgive him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK folks, still don’t own any of the characters but good news - we are about to start earning that E - rating.
> 
> As always you can follow me on Tumblr @ http://bronzedviolets.tumblr.com/

Hammersmith 

Mary pops the tiny white pill out of the pack of 28 and under John’s watchful eye chases it down with a sip of water. As soon as John looks away she mutters ‘ _impede infans’_ under her breath with a practiced flick of her fingers. Even after five years as a NHS nurse she still does not entirely trust these “birth control pills.” But, as her mum always said ‘when in Rome.’

Shell Cottage, Cornwall

“First things first, the name is Ron” he sticks his hand out proudly as though he had never shaken hands before.

When Sherlock continues to stare blankly, Ron’s face falls.

“Did I do it right? You people shake hands when you meet right?”

“Er, yes?” Sherlock responds hopefully, glad the conversation is back on safer ground.

“The name is Sherlock Holmes” he offers tentatively.

“Alright Sherlock, there are a few people you need to meet.” 

As the two of them make their way down the beach to the cottage Sherlock thinks back almost fondly on the days when his biggest problem was a criminal genius with homicidal tendencies.  

Before they cross the threshold the door flies open and a man clearly related to Ron appears, flanked by a woman with flawlessly symmetrical features. The man in contrast has one of the most gruesomely scarred faces Sherlock has ever seen outside of John’s medical journals. It looks like he had been mauled by a large dog, but the lacerations are oddly spaced and of uneven depth and breadth. Almost as though the cutting surfaces changed diameter mid-slice. 

With a start it all falls in place. The creature that savaged Karkaroff had also mutilated this man.

The deduction bursts out of him like gunfire.

“It was a man wasn't it. The thing that killed Karkaroff used to be a man. He must have mauled you mid... mid-transformation.”

The scarred man opens his mouth to speak but Ron interrupts.

“Whatever you do Bill, _don't_ ask him if he is a Legilimens. I think he is a muggle” he continues sotto voice.

The man and the woman ( _clearly a couple, married four, no five months_ ) both start shouting at the same time.

“You brought a MUGGLE here! Are you mad?”

“Mon Dieu Ron, pourquoi?”

“I had to!Greyback was after him”

At the mention of Greyback, the man flinches and disgust mars the woman’s lovely face. The three launch into a hushed and urgent sounding conversation, now ignoring Sherlock completely.

He catches a few snatches of unfamiliar words like ‘obliviate’ and references to the ‘Statute of Secrecy.’ 

Sherlock can’t help himself, his eyes roam across the room and he loses the thread of the conversation as he tries valiantly to process this new (impossible) information. 

If he did not know better he would think he was in a Churchill-era war room, the walls papered with maps of established safe zones. The air smells of parchment and ink and over-brewed tea. With a sharp pang, Sherlock is reminded of Baker Street.  

That is where the familiarity ends though. An old fashioned radio sits in the corner next to an eye-wateringly pink box labeled ‘Apparating Range Boost Charms.’ Lists have been tacked on every free surface, the hastily scrawled names both fantastical and archaic: places like Hogsmeade, and people like Thorfinn Damocles Rowle and Aggripina Giffard Rowens Abbott. 

Sherlock realizes numbly that there is a war going on and he has stumbled right into the middle of it.

It is at that moment he decides to make a choice. Whatever the cost he was going home to John. Maybe the man he'd been at Baskerville would not have been able to cope, but that was almost three years and countless miles ago. In the interim he has seen enough strangeness that he is willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt. As he figures, he has nothing to lose. He's either cracked under the strain, or there is more to the world than previously thought. When it comes down to it, there is nothing Sherlock Holmes hates more than working from incomplete information. 

With a deep fortifying breath he steps forward.

“Excuse me, Ron? Why were you in Serbia? Who was Karkaroff? I thought he was Moriarty's last lieutenant; clearly I was mistaken, although someone indeed wanted him found. Was it an honest mistake on my part or did one of my sources steer me off course?The question that remains is: Who is 'You-know-who'?”

Bill steps forward and, after exchanging loaded glances with his wife and brother, clears his throat.

“Why don’t you have a seat? This is going to take a while.” 

***

Sherlock returns to London 1 year, 11 months, and 9 days after his fall. The great city is unchanged and yet, from his perspective, fundamentally altered. There is a battle raging unseen around him and this time he has no part to play in it. 

 

Diogenes Club

Mycroft is waiting for Sherlock in his plush office, reading the paper at his desk.

“So it's done?”

“Yes, Moriarty’s organization has been wiped off the map” he replies, voice strangely clipped.  

“Would you care to explain how you got out of Serbia?”

Mycroft does not miss his wince at the mention of Serbia. _Curious_.

Sherlock looks like he is about to speak but shakes his head and turns to fidget with one of his cuffs.

“Figure it out; you were always the smart one after all.”

Mycroft takes a slow breath in through his nose and schools his face back into a perfectly placid expression. _So this is how it is going to be._

He sends his brother off with dull warnings about a new terrorist plot and his blogger having “got on with his life.” 

As Sherlock leaves the club, head full of John, Mycroft calls out to his assistant. 

“Anthea, a word please.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Can you discreetly find out the name of the last person he was after?

“Of course. Anything else?”

“Double the protection on Baker Street, and make sure the Other Ministry does not catch wind of it.”

Anthea pales but nods dutifully.

“Yes, sir. Will that be all?”

“Yes. Dismissed.”

  

Marylebone Road, London 

From the moment Sherlock walked up to John’s table in the Landmark Hotel, events had not unfolded the way he had planned (hoped). He had almost two years to imagine their reunion and, while in several possible scenarios there was much shouting and profanity, he had ( _stupid, stupid_ ) not entertained the possibility that John would not forgive him.If he was brutally honest with himself he he had spent more time imagining John’s strong hands, or the exact way his eyes crinkled in a smile until he was forced to reach between his legs, stifling his moans behind a fist. Now, supine on the restaurant floor with John doing his level best to strangle him to death, he realizes that may have been a serious oversight on his part. 

After they were “escorted” from the restaurant and regrouped at a small café he had tried to explain, to show John that it had been all for him, but John’s eyes were clouded with grief and rage. His explanations are met with fists.

Standing in the chill night outside a kebab shop, Sherlock pinches the bridge of his nose and attempts to stanch the sluggish bleeding.  

“I don’t understand. I _said_ I’m sorry. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” The confusion and no small amount of hurt is evident in his voice as he watches John stalk ahead and hail a taxi with military precision.

“Gosh. You don’t know anything about human nature, do you?” Mary’s eyes glitter with something that could be sympathy.

“Mmm, nature? No. Human? ... No.”

“I’ll talk him 'round.”

“You will?”

“Oh yeah” she responds with a shark-like smile.

Sherlock looks at her with renewed curiosity. He'd been ready to write her off as another one of John’s disposable girlfriends, nothing more than background noise in the day-to-day rhythms of their life at Baker Street. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach he realizes that he has again misjudged the situation. _Only child / Linguist / Clever /Part time nurse / Short-sighted / Guardian / Bakes Own Bread / Disillusioned / Cat Lover / Romantic / Appendix Scar / Lib Dem / Secret Tattoo / Size 12 / Liar._ Carved into pieces by the razor of his deductions he still cannot see where he'd gone wrong, where she is different from the others. 

She is still smiling at him as she climbs into the taxi and leaves, taking John away with her.  

***

It is four long days before he sees John again. Four days of replaying their disastrous reunion over and over again in his mind’s eye. He even entertained the idea of deleting the whole sorry incident but the thought of losing even one moment of John turned his stomach in a way he could not really explain. He wonders idly if this is love?

Then, Mary shows up on his doorstep in a panic, and they race off to pull John from the bonfire. Sherlock goes home smelling of ashes and hating himself just a little bit more for bringing nothing but suffering upon the virtuous. 

When John and Mary get engaged, he grits his teeth and tells himself that there is pleasure enough in being there for John as a friend. It still feels like a punishment for his sins.

As the winter passes, things slowly thaw between John and Sherlock. There are cases, “The Poison Giant” and “The Elephant in the Room”, each dutifully written up and posted on the resurrected blog. Sherlock takes his feelings a crams them down into the darkest cellars of his mind palace. He sublimates them into flower arrangements and folded napkins. 

He has his willful heart under control until the case of the “Bloody Guardsman.” After their police statements have been given, John and Sherlock make their separate ways home. 

Walking up the steps of Baker Street, Sherlock feels like he is high on good cocaine, utterly subsumed by the joy of working with his best friend again. John had been glorious, absolutely glorious. He was ready to solve a murder but John saved the man’s life.

He turns to tell John as much and he realizes with a leaden jolt that he is alone. In the time before (before he fell, before Mary), post-case had always meant take-away and whiskey in front of the fire, gleefully recounting the highlights of his deductions while John looked on in rapt wonderment. Sherlock feels a dull ache in his chest as he wonders if maybe that part of his life is over. It is cold comfort to know that even as John drifts away from him, in the secret places of his heart a part of John will always be there with him, limned by firelight and laughing.

With those melancholy thoughts plaguing him, Sherlock slowly gets ready for bed, mood soured. It is hours before he finally succumbs to sleep.

***

_They make their breathless way into the flat and Sherlock hangs up his coat still absolutely flying on endorphins._

_As Sherlock turns to ask John if he would like to stay for some take-away, to his utter mortification he realizes that he is hard, so hard that there is no hope in hell of hiding the bulge in his tailored trousers. Sherlock screws his eyes shut, wishing that the ground would swallow him up. He stands there frozen, cursing himself for letting his guard down._

_When he feels a hand roughly cupping him through the fabric of his slacks he chokes on a breath._

_“Oh god, Sherlock, you are… You are hard”_

_“Excellent deduction, John. Did you get there all by yourself” he grits out through clenched teeth._

  _John continues as though he has not heard him, hand still burning hot over his erection. “Can I, I mean, um, please can I?”_

  _“May you what” he snaps, still mortified beyond belief._

  _John drops hard to his knees and Sherlock is forced to acknowledge that maybe he has misinterpreted the situation._   _John is staring at him, pupils blown wide, the front of his jeans bulging._

_Sherlock realizes that John is waiting for an answer. He attempts to swallow, mouth almost painfully dry. The most he can manage is a clipped nod._ _John surges forward, scrambling to undo his belt buckle. He roughly shoves the constricting fabric of the trousers down and draws Sherlock from his pants with trembling hands._

_Sherlock is harder than he can ever remember being, cock flushed purple and dewed with pre-come. He feels as though there is a live wire under his skin._ _John groans and then his mouth is on him, tentative and worshipful. Sherlock can't believe this is happening; John (his John?) on his knees before him. John gives a tentative suck and Sherlock howls, his orgasm barreling down on him without warning. His cock jerks and spurts, pulse after pulse hitting John’s soft palate._

_John pulls off spluttering, eyes comically wide in surprise._ _Sherlock cringes, not sure what the etiquette is when you have prematurely ejaculated in your friend’s mouth._ _Before he can muster an apology, John (wonderful John) surprises him again as he tugs his own cock out of his jeans and begins frantically jacking himself. It only takes him a dozen strokes and he spills hot all over Sherlock's slacks, staining the fine material._

 ***

Sherlock wakes with a gasp, his semen already cooling on his chest and neck, so alone he could weep.

 

Author's Notes

If you are wondering where Sherlock's deductions about Ron came from here they are: 

UK citizen / raised in Devon – The Burrow is canonically located in Ottery St Catchpole in Devon, England. Residents of Devon speak a unique dialect of “West Country English”

One of at least five children – Ron’s clothing is at least 10 years out of date and shows signs of wear indicating at least four previous owners. It could have been purchased at a second hand shop but the clothes have been carefully mended again and again by the same seamstress indicating a likely hand me down from older siblings.

Educated in Scotland - Ron’s accent has drifted slightly over a number of years to take on a hint of the _rhotic_ accent indicative of Scotland.

The rest Sherlock already explained for you ( ;

With respect to what else happened in Shell Cottage, don't worry, we will get back to that.

Finally, ‘ _impede infans_ ” is a contraceptive charm  and according to harrypotterfanon.wikia.com it is credited to Sienna Gutiérrez. 

 


	3. The Sign of Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long after he is back in London it is that image that sticks with him. The young woman in the first bloom of pregnancy throwing a cursed name into the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, thank you so much everyone that subscribed and/or bookmarked. This is only the second fic I have ever written so it means so much to me that people want to see where this goes. 
> 
> Also if anyone would like to do art for this that would be amazing! My artistic talent unfortunately starts and ends with lewd stick figures.
> 
> Standard disclaimer, still don’t own any of the characters, and I have no idea what I would do without Ariane Devere’s website….
> 
> I would love to hear your comments, questions, concerns etc.
> 
> If you are bored you can follow me on Tumblr @BronzedViolets. I follow back ( :

Shell Cottage (Previous November)

The odd company is seated around a crackling fire awkwardly clutching cups of tea. With a grave voice Bill begins.  

“As you have probably guessed by now, magic is real.”

“Can anyone learn it?” Sherlock leans in, a million questions squirming like ants under his skin.

“No, it is something you are born with.” 

Sherlock's relief is almost palpable. It is one thing to know ‘magic’ is out there, but to think the Moriartys of the world could learn it would have been profoundly disturbing.

Undeterred by the interruption Bill continues. 

“You have to understand, we are people just like you, some of us are good and some of us are bad.”

“So You-Know-Who is one of your criminals?”

“If only” replies Bill sadly. “He is the most dangerous dark wizard of all-time. He has legions of followers, has personally murdered hundreds of innocent people, and last summer he overthrew our government.”

“You have a government?”

“Don't you?”

“Touché, and the death eaters?”

“His most loyal followers. They have his mark,literally branded on their skin.”

“What is it?”

Bill leans over and pulls amusty tome off of the end table and starts flipping through it.

“Here, see for yourself.” He hands the book over for Sherlock's perusal.  

In the middle of the yellowed page is a charcoal sketch rendered in loving detail. It is a skeletal head, mouth agape, disgorging a snake. The writhing coils of the snake form an infinity sign, its head protruding at the distal end. Someone has scrawled the words “the dark mark” across the page in something that looks uncomfortably like fresh blood.

Sherlock is seized by the overwhelming sensation that he is looking at something obscene. The longer he looks the stronger the sensation grows, until he feels like he can almost see the snake undulating out of the corner of his eye. With a shiver of disgust he slams the book shut and thrusts it back to Bill.

Bill gives him an appraising look. “You feel it too don't you? I wasn't sure if you would be able to, but this book has been around dark magic and it _remembers_.”  

Sherlock shivers a second time and is struck with a longing for home so intense it borders on painful. He does not want to be part of a world where books remember and the tidy logic of the universe is unravelled.

Bill pauses a moment and then continues.

“During the first wizarding war his followers cast this mark above the houses where they had killed people. My Mum still talks about it now, what it was like. You come home and see the mark grinning over your house and you know what is waiting for you inside. The man you were looking for, Karkaroff, was one of them. He betrayed his master and Greyback, who you had the misfortune of meeting, was there to collect the debt.”

“Wait, first wizarding war? You are what 28 or 29? Barring any significant reproductive differences in “magical people” logically your mother would have to be almost 50 years old, how old is You-Know-Who?”

“He is 72.”

“And he is still leading an army? Wait don’t answer that, it is obvious. Tell me, how was he stopped the first time?”

“We thought he had been killed.”

“So not dead then?” says Sherlock dryly.

“Quite.” Bill’s face twists into a wry grin, the scar tissue puckering grotesquely.

“So what was Ron doing there in the forest then? Were you trying to get to Karkaroff first? Did he have information?”

Ron shakes his head sheepishly.

“No mate, I was just trying to find my friends . ”

“Why were _they_ in the middle of Serbia _?_ ”

“I don't know where they are, just that they are probably in a forest somewhere in the UK, or continental Europe. We were, umm, separated. Serbia was a long shot.” Ron looks down at his hands evasively.

Sherlock is about to comment on the abysmal likelihood of finding someone by wandering at all hours through different forests, but the look on Ron’s face makes him reconsider.

“So this You-Know-Who, does he have a name?”

The three exchange another complicated set of looks. This time it is the woman who speaks. 

“I can write it down for you, but we can't speak it out loud.”

“Why on earth not?”

“There is a trace on it . ”

“A trace?” Sherlock parrots back.

“A spell. If his name is spoken aloud he can find us . ”

Sherlock simply nods as though he routinely discussed wizards and spells and magical traces.

The woman rises gracefully to her feet and as she stands Sherlock realizes that she is pregnant. _Probably only two or three months along_. With a determined gait she walks over to a small cupboard and extracts a piece of parchment and an old fashioned quill.

After a moment of hesitation she writes the name out in flawless copperplate: _Voldemort_.

Waiting long enough to ensure it has been read, she snatches the paper up and throws it into the fire.

Long after he is back in London it is that image that sticks with him. The young woman in the first bloom of pregnancy throwing a cursed name into the fire.

Scotland, Hogwarts Castle (May 2nd)

Mary stumbles through the dark, blood in her hair. The dark lord had fallen, but she is still alive. She is nothing if not a survivor.  

Hammersmith, London

523 miles away John sleeps.  

_Around him mortars explodes with a concussive force he can feel in his teeth. Someone is shooting at him, the staccato blasts echoing through the dry desert air.The sky is split open and gaping, sickly green light pouring out where stars should be. In the distance he can hear a child screaming. Sherlock is there, his dark coat falling like wings behind him. John realizes that this is wrong somehow but in the chaos he can’t figure out why. Sherlock is trying to tell him something but all he can make out is the snake-like hissing of static. His friend grabs him by the straps of his pack and hauls him closer, for a heart stopping moment John thinks he is about to be kissed. Instead Sherlock leans forward and whispers right into the shell of his ear._

_“You are not safe here.”_

CRACK 

John sits bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding, clammy sweat gluing his nightclothes to his body.Trying to find the source of the sound that had woken him. Disoriented he looks around, Mary’s side of the bed is cold. 

Baker Street 

As spring slowly fades Sherlock’s spirits wilt with it. 

London is an enormous city, but the number of strange deaths and unexplained disappearances are creeping up to uncomfortably high levels. 

The worst part is that Sherlock knows on a general level who is responsible but there is nothing he can do about it. When an elderly woman is brutally murdered in her own home in a room locked from the inside Lestrade is frustrated to the point of tears when he refuses to even look at the scene.

To add insult to injury (or was it injury upon injury?) John is getting married in less than a month. Each day is amaelstrom of decisions about morning suits ( _mourning suits_ ) and flower arrangements, punctuated only by thearrival of saccharine telegrams.

_“To John and Mary. All good wishes for your special day. With love and many big squishy cuddles, from Stella and Ted.”_

_“Mary –_ _lots of love, poppet. You will always be my little Agra. Oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from CAM.”_

Sherlock wonders idly ifJohn would notice if he burned the hateful things but decides that would probably count as a violation of his sacred duties as best man.

He may have failed John as a friend, but he will be damned if he fails at this.

He is morosely contemplating getting out his violin and working on the wedding waltzwhen an enormous barn owl comes crashing right onto the kitchen table. 

The owl shakes itself off and turns to look at him with baleful eyes.

“Mrs Hudson” Sherlock booms. 

“There is an owl in the kitchen !”

“Well it’s not mine dear” she shouts back from downstairs. 

“Did you leave the window open? You haven’t been smoking in the flat again have you?”

Realizing he is not going to get any help from that quarter, he starts flapping his arms in what he hopes is a menacing manner.

“Shoo! Back out the window, pop-off the way you came!”

The owl just continues to stare at him then disgruntledly holds out a foot. Sherlock is astounded to see a small bundle carefully affixed there with a bit of ribbon. 

When he makes no move to approach, the owl waggles his foot at him in a plainly irritated manner.

Mindful of the wicked looking beak Sherlock approaches and gingerly unties the bundle. To his astonishment the owl holds perfectly still.

As soon as the package is untied, the owl gives a big flap of its wings and takes flight. As it makes for the open window Sherlock is certain it gives him a disapproving look.

He carefully unrolls the package. It is a note written on fine parchment in an unsteady hand, the paper is spotted with what looks like tears, stone dust, and in one place the rust of blood. It is a three line sign of hope.

_ Voldemort is dead.  _

_ The war is over. _

_ You are safe. _

Sherlock feels as though an enormous burden has been released from his shoulders, but he still wonders to himself, at what cost?  

Feeling suddenly at the loose ends, he picks up his violin and plays until his fingers bleed.

Baker Street – Stag Night

The stag night is a blur of cigarette ash and beer. By the time they make it back to the flat Sherlock is more than pleasantly buzzed but no one has urinated in a wardrobe so he grudgingly counts it as a win.

They are both slumped in their chairs, slack with the pleasure of drink and good company. John has toed off his shoes and is resting them on the armchair between them. For a golden moment it is although the last three years never happened. Then Sherlock makes his first mistake. He looks down and sees John’s perfect feet between his legs. _If he just slid a few inches down they would be flush against his bollocks._ He can almost imagine John sliding his foot up the smooth line of his trousers. _Would he be tentative or would he..._ Sherlock realizes with a jolt of cold panic that he is starting to get hard. He jumps out of the chair, hand over his mouth to stifle a groan, and bolts for the loo, slamming the door shut behind him.

With shaking breath he assesses the situation. He is fully erect now, cock straining painfully against his zip. He can't go back to the sitting room in this state, and his erection is showing no signs of waning. If anything, the illicit thrill of knowing John is in the next room is making him harder.

Cursing under his breath he attempts to quietly unbuckle his trousers. One hand braced against the wall, he carefully pulls himself out of his pants with a groan of relief.

***

Chuckling to himself, John makes his slightly unsteady way to the kitchen to pour his friend a glass of water. Not even half- ten and Sherlock was vomiting. _Well I suppose that is one sign of a successful stag night._

John has the filled glass in one hand, the other poised to rap on the door when he hears it. The rough sound of skin sliding over skin.

The blood drains from his face and he feels suddenly light headed. _He can't be. Can he?_ He has nearly convinced himself otherwise when he hears the unmistakable sound of a stifled moan. Ithits himlike a punch in the gut.

Sherlock, _his Sherlock_ , is having a ‘Barclays Bank’ right on the other side of the door.

He can see it in his mind’s eye, Sherlock fucking his big fist, desperate and undone.

His traitorous cock goes rigid in his pants as he stands there transfixed.

He can't help himself, his hand drifts down to roughly stroke himself over the denim of his jeans. 

Then everything happens all at once. From the other side of the door he hears a bitten-off groan of completion just as the flat door bangs open and Mrs Hudson’s “Yoohoo” rings through the air. 

John jumps like a scalded cat, splashing water all over the Lino. 

“Mrs Hudson! Weren't you at your nephew’sfuneral?I was just, erm, bringing water some Sherlock. I mean bringing Sherlock some water. Look I've spilled it. I'll just get a cloth, back in a tic.”

He almost knocks overhis stunned landlady and her guest in his haste to get upstairs. 

As he rounds the landing, face burning with shame, he hears her nervous titter. Apparently the state of his trouser had not gone unnoticed.

***

The rest of the night goes downhill from there.

When John wakes up in the Met lock-up more hungover than he has been since med school he is half convinced he imagined the scene. The cognitive dissonance is just too intense. How can he possibly reconcile Sherlock “it is just transport” Holmes with the man having a drunken wank in the loo on his stag night?

His own reactions are something he is not comfortable looking too closely at either. He can't deny that he had been deeply attracted to his friend since the first day they met. The difference is that it is far easier to tamp down that attraction when the other person “just doesn't feel things that way.”

As he looks up at his friend passed out on the cold bench of the cell, for the first time John wonders if maybe asking Mary to be his wife was a mistake.

He loves Sherlock and always will but the thought of maybe being something more than friends is enough to make his cock start to thicken.

Shaking his head, he ruthlessly stops that train of thought. What kind of man would he be if he reneged on a promise just because he is forced to acknowledge that his friend is a sexual being?

He knows from bitter experience ( _Major Sholto_ ) it would be the worst kind of folly to assume that because he is attracted to Sherlock the feeling was mutual. Even if it was, his friend had made it quite clear that he does not “do relationships.” It was stupid of John to assume that went hand in hand with eschewing all pleasures of the flesh.

So John does what he always has. He tucks away those thoughts in the box with the rest of his broken dreams. He will never be a soldier again, he will never perform surgery, and he will never be the lover of the most brilliant man he has ever met.

Besides, Mary is lovely and kind. She was there for him when he was a broken shadow and still fell in love with him despite the darkness. He tells himself that after all he has seen and done he needs someone like her in his life, a touchstone untainted with violence and grief. 

By the time the wedding takes place he almost believes it.

Author’s notes: 

In an odd coincidence, it has always been my head-canon that John and Mary live in Hammersmith. It is a lovely area on the tube line with a lot of young professional couples. Also, for John, it is one of the top ten least safe places to live in London (see findahood.com). I have just learned it is where Benedict Cumberbatch was born….

WRT Hogwarts being 523 miles away, while the castle is technically unplottable it is probably located near Glen Nevis in Northern Scotland as you can see the Glenfinnon viaduct and West Highland Railway from the Hogwarts express. Thank you Quora

The name of the elderly woman murdered in a locked room was Amelia Bones.

‘Barclays Bank’ is Cockney rhyming slang for‘wank’ 

Also I feel everyone should know Arsehole is ‘jam roll’. Do with that information what you will…

 


	4. His Last Vow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What happens when you break it?”
> 
> “You die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still sadly don't own the characters. I do not have a beta so if anyone would like to volunteer feel free to send me a note on Tumblr. I am BronzedViolets there too ( :

Hammersmith, London

In their cheerfully wallpapered bedroom John dreams.

_John is standing in the hall at Baker Street. The door to the flat is slightly ajar. Alarmed he fumbles for his gun but his fingers close on empty air._

_He can just make out faint sounds coming from the far end of the sitting room._

_Sherlock's voice rings out startlinglyloud in the empty flat._

_“I'vebeen waiting for you.”_

_The chairs have been moved again, his armchair is now facing the fireplace, silhouetted in sepia by the moonlight streaming in through the kitchen._

_Over the high-backed chair, he can faintly make out the top ofSherlock’s head._

_As hemoves closer he sees the shadow of his right elbow moving in violent jerks up and down._

_With a gasp he realizes that the faint sounds are those of hand upon shaft._

_Mesmerized, John inches closer, breath caught in his chest._

_He is close enough now to see Sherlock pumping furiously, his swollen cock glistening as his fist flies up and down. His head is thrown back, eyes closed, the soft sounds of skin on skin obscenely loud in the hush of the flat._

_Johncan hear that Sherlock is approaching climax, the tempo of his strokesincreasing, his breaths becoming short and raspy._

_“What are you waiting for John?”_

_John squeezes his own cock, hot and rigid in his pants. He slowly drags down his zip and eases his erection out of his trousers.It springs free, thick and harder than he has been in ages._

_Watching Sherlock continue to pump his member, John begins to stroke himself in-time with his friend._

John wakes up with a gasp, cock harder than iron, to find Mary sitting cross-legged, staring at him like a cat.

“So, what were you dreaming about?”As the covers do nothing to hide his erection there is little point denying it was something sexual. 

“I.. I can't remember” he mumbles.

“Well maybe we can put that to use?” 

She smirks, her pointed look towards his groin make it clear what kind of use she means.

Without waiting for a reply, she clambers astride him and gives a sharp nip to the side of his neck.

In no mood for foreplay he flips her over onto her back, one hand sliding her nightgown up, the other freeing his cock from his pajamas. With a groan he rubs his cockhead over her clit and down. She is already wet, grabbing at his arse to try and guide him in. 

He slides home with a grunt of satisfaction and slowly begins to thrust. To his complete and utter mortification instead of the furious fuck he was expecting, he feels himself start to lose his erection. He grits his teeth and tries to will it back but to no avail. His cock gets limper by the second until it slides out with a wet pop.

“I’m… I'm sorry, I don’t know what happened. I guess I am just tired” he finishes lamely.

“I've heard that before.” Her tone is icy as she pulls her nightgown down and rolls away from him.

John can not think of a single thing to say in his defence so he tucks his flaccid penis away andpulls the covers up over him like a shield. It is a long time before he falls back to sleep.

Shell Cottage (Previous November)

The strange company sits by the fire, and the trio explains how they have come to be at war. Sherlock is reminded unpleasantly of the ugly racism of the second world war; mud-bloods, blood traitors and false trials. 

Three pots of tea in, Sherlock is starting to think he has a handle on the situation when he realizes that he has made a glaring oversight. He is torn between cursing himself for his own stupidity and just being grateful he is not gibbering in the foetal position from the influx of information. 

“I realize now that I probably should have asked this first, but what are you going to do to me?”

“I don’t understand” Ron sends a quizzical look to his brother and his wife. 

Sherlock addresses the three of them rapid-fire.

“Obviously you can’t let me walk right out of here. You are at war, one I am not sure you are going to win, terribly sorry about that, and this is clearly a safe house, so I ask again. What are you going to do to me? The fact that you did take the time to explain the situation argues very strongly for the option that you are not going to kill me. On the other hand, needs must when the devil drives and all that.”

Bill sucks a deep breath in through his teeth and pauses thoughtfully before he speaks.

“Generally when a muggle witnesses something magical we erase their memory of the incident, but obviously that is not ideal considering Greyback saw you. On the other hand, we can’t let you leave either, if it gets out that we spoke to you it is not going to be a simple prosecution by the Improper Use of Magic Office.” 

“So what are you proposing?”

“What do you think about taking a vow?”

“You want me to promise not to tell?” Sherlock's eyebrows shoot up almost to his hairline, the very picture of incredulity.

“Not a promise, an unbreakable vow.”

“And when you say ‘unbreakable’ do you mean that I would be ‘magically’ compelled to keep it?”

“No, your free will is not affected, you have to choose to keep the vow.”

“What happens when you break it?”

“You die.”

“I see. That is ingenious actually. Even if I am tortured I would be unable to reveal information that would compromise your security.”

“I would not have put it that way, but yes” replies Bill, a little taken aback by Sherlock’s bluntness.

It takes a further 45 minute discussion to agree upon exactly how to phrase the vow but finally they are ready to proceed. Sherlock kneels on the braided rug and Bill kneels facing him. Steeling himself, Sherlock reaches out and they grasp hands. Fleur moves closer until she is standing over them. She pulls out a slender stick ( _rosewood approximately 9 ½” long_ ) and holds it over their joined hands like a conductor preparing to cue an orchestra. Ron stands back watching them nervously.

Bill hesitates momentarily, then begins. 

“Sherlock, whatever it takes, whatever happens, from now on do you swear you will never speak of what you learned here tonight?”

“I do.”

A thin stream of fire jets from the tip of the stick and Sherlock has to forcibly stop himself from jerking back. To his amazement there is no pain just the sensation of warmth.The flames weave around their hands conjoined hands three times before they disappears in a shower of sparks the color of a butane flame.

“It's done” says Bill solemnly. “Before I take you back to London, I would like to give you something."

He rummages around for a moment in one of the cabinets and then pulls out two identical matchboxes. 

“If you need to contact us put a note in it. There is a vanishing charm on it. Your note will appear in the twin.The enchantment only works once so please use it carefully.” 

Sherlock nods gravely and pockets the box. He is going home.

Rockwell South Ward

Lady Smallwood sits in the back of her Rolls Royce, scrubbing viciously at the side of her face. That beast Magnussen had actually licked her. She slowly lets out a shaky breath.

“Oh, God.” 

“You all right, ma’am?” Her chauffeur looks back, eyes filled with concern.

“Fine, yes.”

Putting down the handkerchief she begins to mutter angrily to herself.

“Magnussen. No-one stands up to him. No-one dares. No-one even tries. There isn’t a man or woman in England capable of stopping that disgusting creature ...”

“Ma’am?”

“Turn the car around. We’re going back into town. Turn around.”

“Where are we going, ma’am?”

“Diagon Alley.” 

Hammersmith, London

As time passes it is becoming increasingly clear that Mary is not the person John thought ( _hoped_ ) she was.

Oddly enough it was Harry who had noticed it first, she was joking in her ham-fisted way when she said he must be an amazing shag to land Mary as she never seemed to have anything nice to say about him. At the time he laughed it off, but it was like one of those hidden pictures that once pointed out you cannot unsee. It was true that Mary was always taking the piss but John had chalked it up to her having a lively sense of humor. He had thought her to be kind because she stood by him quietly in his grief, but looking back he could not remember a single time Mary complimented him on something other than his sex appeal and that had always been when she wanted something.Truth be told, their sex life had never been spectacular, and since the wedding it was decidedly sub-par.

It finally comes to a head a quiet afternoon in August. John and Mary are sitting at the table finishing their tea when he mentions that he might drop by Baker Street later. He misses his friend but it seems like every time he plans to stop by or give him a call Mary has some activity lined up that she swears had been planned for months.This time is no exception.

“Sorry honey, but I thought we were inviting Stella and Ted over for a drink tonight?”

Taking a deep breath he slams his cup down on the table with more force than necessary. Tea sloshes over the rim, staining the table. 

“It's been ages since I have seen Sherlock.”

“It has been a month.”

“Doesn't matter.” 

Mary gives him an exasperated look. 

“Why are you being so ...?” She can’t come up with the word she is looking for so she twirls her hands in the air, frustrated.

“What?”

“I don’t know. What’s the matter with you?”

“There is nothing the matter with me! … Imagine I said that without shouting.”

“I’m trying.”

“Look Mary, I think we need to talk.”

“It’s about _him_ isn’t it?” The venom in her voice is startling. 

“No, I mean I don’t know. I think there are a few things that I need to figure out.”

Mary face goes startlingly white and something ugly flashes in her eyes.

“So are we having our little sexuality crisis now? Don’t make that face at me. Don’t think I didn’t notice those dreams of yours.” 

“ _Oh Sherlock. Oh God yes_ ” she mimics cruelly. 

“It’s not like that.”

She continues speaking right over his protests. “And after all I have done for you! Well, I will save you some trouble sweetheart. What would _he_ want with a broken down mud-blood army doctor who can’t even get it up half of the time?”

John recoils as though he has been slapped.

“You know what? Sod this. I don’t need this.” John trembles with rage as he slowly pushes his chair back from the table. He slip on his coat, pockets his keys and heads for the door without meeting her eyes.

“John” she calls after him. “If you walk out that door right now I won’t be here when you come back.”

 “Good.” He slams the door so hard he can feel the jamb splinter.

John heads for the street and begins to walk. He walks for hours. When he gets home, true to her promise, Mary is gone. Bone tired and emotionally exhausted he crawls into bed fully clothed and sleeps.  

John wakes up in an empty house.With a startling moment of clarity he knows what he has to do.

***

John walks up the 17 steps to the Baker Street flat, a scrap of paper burning a hole in his pocket. Before he can open the door, Sherlock bursts into the hall.

“John, I was just about to text you. Lestrade called, there has been a double murder. Victim number one – Lady Elizabeth Smallwood, Scottish, 65 years old, Member of Parliament.” 

“And who was victim number two?”

“Charles Augustus Magnussen, Danish, 51 years old. Owns a number of antique stores, Appledore where the bodies were found, Borgin & Burkes, amongst others. Rumour has it he also dabbles in blackmail.”

Sherlock is already past him pounding down the steps when he stops short.

He turns around and seems to take John in for the first time. 

“You are sad? Why are you sad?”

“Uhh” John takes a trembling breath and continues.

“Mary and I, I think we uh, separated.”

“What? Why?”

John scrubs his hands through his hair a few times, not sure what he should say.

“Never mind, I will tell you later. Case?”

Sherlock opens his mouth to speak but then closes it again with a snap and resumes his descent. John follows him down. There would be time enough to talk later.

***

They find Appledore Antiques on the south side of Tower Bridge road, sandwiched between a fish and chips shop and an estate agent’s. Lestrade is waiting for them outside the police cordon when they arrive. 

“Glad you could make it gents, the publicity on this one is bound to be bad.”

The pair follow him under the yellow tape into the front room of the shop. 

“The bodies are back here in the office. You have about 5 minutes before SOCO gets here. So you have to be quick”

Predictably Sherlock doesn’t respond, he stalks over, John at his heels, and begins to intently examine the room. It is an opulently decorated office dominated by an antique mahogany pedestal desk with a throne-like chair and two smaller leather visitor’s chairs. 

Lady Smallwood is collapsed in one of the visitor’s chairs. Her throat is ringed with livid purple bruises. _Likely killed before she could stand._ A splash of arterial blood ( _not hers, Magnussen’s_?) runs across the fine linen of her jacket and up over her face.

The body of Magnussen is half hidden behind the desk, only his feet visible from the doorway. His face and chest have been brutally slashed as though with a sword. _Cause of death acute blood loss?_

The most unusual feature of the scene is a large electric blue beetle ( _Elderberry Borer?_ ) which has been pinned to the surface of the desk with what appears to be an antique letter opener.

Over the copper taint of blood he can make out the lingering smell of perfume. It is the one Mary favoured, _Chanel? No. Claire de la Lune._

“John, what do you see?”

“She was killed first, probable strangulation, otherwise she would have moved while the other bloke was spraying blood all over her and um, the bug was put there after because it is on top of the blood?”

“Obvious, could I get a time of death?”

Without waiting for John's answer Sherlock spins around and turns his attention back to the desk.

_Now that is odd. The letter opener clearly belongs with the stationary set on the desk. So where did the beetle come from. If the beetle was part of the staging then why bring it but use a letter opener from the scene?_

A part from that strangeness, something else is off about the scene. Sherlock stands back and looks at the tableau again.

“Where is it?” he mutters to himself.

“Where is what?” John looks up from his examination of Lady Smallwood.

“The cast-off! Magnussen was clearly slashed to death so where is the cast-off splatter? With multiple strikes the murder weapon should have been coated with blood. Where IS the cast-off?”

 “I don’t understand.”

“The murder weapon would have been dripping with blood! There is evidence of at least a dozen wounds. As the killer struck him again and again it should have flown off the blade and splashed the wall, the floor, somewhere!”

“So you are saying those wounds were made without touching the body?”

Sherlock freezes, realizing that is exactly what he is implying.

“I uhh no. I mean…This scene was clearly staged! Amateur mistake. Very dull. Just find the person being blackmailed and you will find the murderer. I’m sure Lestrade will figure it out. Anyhow,back to Baker Street.”

“What?”

Sherlock acts as though he has not heard him and makes a break for the door.

***

When the cab pulls up in front of the flat Sherlock leaps out, leaving John to pay, and flies up the stairs.

He runs to the desk and pulls out the matchbox and a scrap of paper. He scribbles out a note as fast as he can.

_Murder at the Appledore Antique Shop, Tower Bridge Road, London. One of yours?_

He folds up the note and pops it in just as he hears John’s exasperated footsteps on the landing. 

The matchbox emits a brief burst of light as the door flies open. Sherlock pops it into his pocket and turns to face his friend.

John is not amused. “So what the hell was that about then?” 

“What was what about?” he asks as innocently as he can.

“Shouting about missing cast-off and then dashing out like your coat was on fire? You owe me 30 quid by the way!”

Sherlock sighs theatrically.

“You are too clever by half John, I recognized the handiwork. Likely CIA wetwork. A tedious job for Mycroft. Can’t have the Met getting involved. National Security and all that.”  

John gives him a skeptical look and prepares to launch into a tirade, no doubt about why he would be helping Mycroft of all people.

_Bollocks, should not have tried to distract him with flattery._ Sherlock valiantly attempts to change the subject.

“So..” He fumbles for something suitably distracting. “What happened with Mary?”

The look on John’s face makes Sherlock immediately regret his choice of question.

“That is part of what I came here to talk to you about. Uhh, Sherlock there is something I have to tell you.” He takes a deep breath and pulls a crumpled piece of stationary out of his pocket.

“You know I am not good with this kind of thing so these are prepared words, Sherlock. I’ve chosen these words with care.”

“Okay?”

John closes his eyes for a moment and takes a shaking breath in, letting it out slowly through his nose. 

“The business with Mary is my past. It would be my privilege if you would be my future.”

He puts the note down on the side table and carefully flattens it out before he looks up again and meets Sherlock’s eyes.

“So I guess what I am trying to say is, even if I _am_ nothing more than a broken down mud-blood army doctor, I am yours if you will have me, in _any way_ that you want me.”

“Wait, what did you say?”

“I am yours if you will have me?”

“Not that part, the broken down what?” 

“Mud-blood army doctor?”

“Why did you say that John, why did you pick that exact phrase?”

“Um, it was just something Mary said to me, kind of stuck with me I guess.”

“Oh God…”

Like a bolt of lightening leaping from the clouds to the ground, it all crashes suddenly and violently in place. _Charles Augustus Magnussen, CAM, the murderer is being blackmailed, Claire de la Lune, you will always be my little Agra, Aggripina Giffard Rowens Abbott._

“John, listen to me. I think I made a mistake. This is very important - I need you to describe Mary’s tattoo.”

“What? Slow down Sherlock. You are not making any sense.”

“The tattoo John! Describe it to me” Sherlock is virtually shouting now.

“Relax. Alright. It is a skull snake thing”

“John…” The warning in his voice is evident.

“Umm, alright, it is about 6 centimeters long, all black work. I think it is a snake coming out of a skull’s mouth. What is this about? Why is Mary’s tattoo so bloody important?”

“Oh God, it was Mary. Mary killed them”

There is real panic in his eyes.

“John, I thought we had more time. I am so sorry. If it wasn’t for me… I should have brought you with me.I love you, I always have.” With that he grabs John by the lapels and pulls him in for a kiss. 

It is brutal and hot and tastes like everything John ever wanted. It is also far too short as Sherlock pushes him back with a pained groan.

John raises a trembling hand to touch his lips, pupils blown wide. 

Sherlock takes a shaky step back. John can see that he is trembling and with a dawning horror he realizes that something terrible is about to happen.

“What Sherlock? What is happening?”

“Tell Mycroft, he will know what to do, he will be able to keep you safe. Tell him it was Mary, tell him she is a Death Eater.”

Sherlock pitches over backward grabbing his chest and for a terrifying second John thinks he has been shot.

The reality of it is just as bad. John fumbles for a pulse and finds nothing.  

Author’s Notes

If any of you have taken an unbreakable vow I would highly recommend you don’t try to break it. Sherlock is a trained professional (and an idiot). 

Also, I am sad that I could not work this exchange between Ron and Sherlock into the dialogue so here it is:

_“Mate, best of luck, maybe you should look into getting yourself a fireleg?” suggests Ron helpfully._

_“A what?”_

_“Have you not heard of them? It is a new muggle invention that blasts metal at people. Like a small cannon” he continues enthusiastically._

_“Ah, yes… I will look into that.”_

With respect to Lady Smallwood I hesitated at first keeping her as the MP for Rockwell South Ward as she is canonically. I wondered why a witch would be a muggle MP but then I attempted to look up Rockwell South to find out where it is located and….it does not exist. Bam.  

SOCO are the Scenes of Crime Officers that the Met (New Scotland Yard) use to collect evidence. American TV leads me to believe these are called CSI in the states. We call them ident officers in Canada…

Finally in a hilarious typo I almost missed, I wrote Claire de Lube…. 

 

 

 


	5. The Abominable Bride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now who should I kill first?” She begins to sing softly to herself, swinging her wand back and forth between the three of them
> 
> Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,  
> Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,  
> Shrewd Slytherin from fen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys! Looks like this is going to be 6 chapters instead of 5!

May 2nd Hogwarts Castle

Mary apparates with a crack that echoes like a gunshot across the forbidden forest.

She falls to her knees, head bowed, and waits for the Dark Lord to speak.

“Aggripina, is everything in place?”

“Yes my Lord. I have access to Mycroft Holmes. When Hogwarts falls, the Muggle government will fall soon after.”

“I hope having to maintain such _close quarters_ with muggle filth has not been too distasteful.” His emphasis on ‘close quarters’ makes it clear exactly what she had to do to gain access to Mycroft’s inner circle.

The titters of ugly laughter from her fellows makes her face burn with shame and rage but she holds her tongue. 

“Anything for you my Lord.” She keeps her head bowed demurely even as her fist clenches almost hard enough to snap her wand.

“I know you doubted me child, you thought I had fallen 16 years ago, but in this sacrifice you have proven your loyalty to me and it will not go unrewarded.”

“The honour of fighting at your side is reward enough my Lord.”

“Then so be it. Remember, Harry Potter is mine. Tonight Hogwarts will fall, and with it every  witch, wizard and child that stands in our way!”

Diagon Alley (Previous Night)

Lady Smallwood briskly makes her way down Diagon Alley until she comes to the office of the Daily Prophet. Rita Skeeter is waiting for her in the lobby, dressed to the nines in an electric blue sheath with a poisonous looking yellow scarf draped artistically around her shoulders.

“Lady Smallwood, darling! I got your message that you wanted to see me. Did you finally decide to break your silence on what it is like to be a Muggle MP? The readers are absolutely dying to hear about it!”

“In a fashion Ms. Skeeter, is there somewhere more private we can talk?”

Once they are safely ensconced in her private office, Rita lets her mask of congeniality fall.

“So, Elizabeth, why are you really here? The last time I requested an interview I believe you called me a ‘blood sucking parasite’ and said you would rather ‘kiss a dementor  than spend a single moment in my company.’ You look terrible by the way, only 60 and you look ancient! I would give you the name of my stylist but there is only so much he can do!”

“You’ve not changed a bit Rita, you are every bit as unpleasant as I remember. I’m here because I need your help. I know you are an unregistered Animagus.” 

“Oh do you now?” Rita leans back, a challenging look in her eyes.

“Don’t be stupid Rita, we were roommates for seven years. Do you think I didn’t notice that blue beetle always crawling around the Slytherin common room?” 

“Are you trying to black-mail _me_?” 

“Not you, Magnussen.”

“Oh honey, you are in trouble aren’t you…”

“He is holding letters and photographs of a ‘personal’ nature. Before you say it, I know! I know! There is no force in earth that could get them back. My career _is over_.” 

“So what do you want from me?”

“Come with me to Appledore. I will try to bargain with him, you record what he says. Then you can break both scandals in the Daily Prophet for all I care. All I want is to bring him down with me…”

Little does she know, but those are prophetic words.

Hammersmith (Previous Night)

Mary stands alone in her stupid muggle flat looking at the trappings of her pitiful muggle life and screams. It is a horrible guttural noise filled with pain and hate.This is not who she is. This is not who she was supposed to be. She can fully admit that she lost faith when the Dark Lord fell the first time. She rebuilt herself a life in the American wizarding city of Fitchburgh, Massachusetts. She became ‘Amanda’ the sweet muggle born orphan. No one connected her with pure-blood Aggripina, the fearsome Death Eater, as heartless as she was beautiful. But she had not come this far by deluding herself. As soon as her scar started to burn she knew, she knew he would be back and that she would do anything to return to his side. But where had that gotten her? The Dark Lord was dead, killed by a teenager with a disarming spell. The Ministry was no doubt after her again, they would like nothing better than to see her spend the rest of her life rotting in Azkaban. Even that she could work with; they never came close to finding her before and how could they now? Who would look for a Death Eater married to a muggle and living as one of them? The problem was Magnessen. That vulture knew who she really was, and worse, where she was. He was happy now with a few thousand galleons a month, but how long would that last? It was time to stop being Mary and start being Aggripina again. With that thought, she feels the calm of a decision well made begin to spread over her. She marches briskly up the stairs and retrieves her wand from where she secreted it under a loose floorboard in the spare bedroom. When she feels its slender length in her hand, she feels as though she can finally breathe again. She is going to take care of Magnussen and then she is going to show John and his little friend why no one walks away from  Aggripina Giffard Rowens Abbott.

***

The moon is just starting to peak out from behind the Tower Bridge when she strolls out of Appledore Antiques. She is tempted for a moment to throw up a Dark Mark for old time’s sake but decides against it. Let the muggle police try to figure that one out! She had used the s _trangulavit_ curse on the old woman and sectumpsempra on Magnussen. Pinning that horrible bug to the desk between them with the letter opener had been a stroke of genius. She had spent enough time around Sherlock to know that muggle murderers like to use ‘signatures’ like that to add a bit of flair to their crimes. She contemplates looking for John now, but decides against it. She has plans to make- Eastern Europe is supposed to be beautiful at this time of year and she is going to need a new identity. Tomorrow night she will find John and make him pay, besides, she already has a very good idea of where he will be.

Baker Street (Present Day)

With shaking hands John calls 999. The 8 minutes waiting for the ambulance are amongst the longest of his life. The world narrows nauseatingly to chest compressions, rescue breaths, and more chest compressions. The contrast between Sherlock’s burning lips during their too short kiss and the cold slack ones makes an icy fist of panic crystallize around John’s heart. When he hears Sherlock’s ribs crack from the pressure he feels like he might pass-out but somehow he keeps going. Chest compressions, rescue breaths, and more chest compressions. After what seems to be an eternity, the paramedics arrive and John’s relief is so profound he feels tears filling his eyes. His respite is short lived though. Watching the paramedics swarm around his fallen friend gives him the space to think that he did not have while performing CPR. John wishes for the first time in his life that he was not a doctor. That he could at least, for a short time be unaware of the dismal survival rates of a patient in asystole.

John looks down at his watch and sees that it has been 11 minutes since Sherlock’s heart stopped. _If asystole has persisted for fifteen minutes and emergency treatments have been applied but the heart is still unresponsive, it is time to consider pronouncing the patient dead._ John turns and vomits violently all over the rug.  

Diogenes Club

Mycroft is at his desk scribbling down a missive for his counterpart in the Other Ministry. The son of a man in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office had tipped him off that a high profile murder in London might have been committed by one of theirs. He signs the note with a flourish and is just contemplating how to tell Detective Inspector Lestrade that the case was being pulled in the interest of national security when Anthea bursts into his office.

“Sir, my records show that a 999 call was just placed from your brother’s flat requesting an ambulance for someone in cardiac arrest.”

“Did Sherlock place the call?” 

“No sir, John Watson did.”

“Were the police called?”

“No, but five minutes before the call was placed the wards registered a small amount of magic being used, maybe a vanishing charm. Then, 45 seconds before the call, another spell was cast. It was a powerful one, but it happened too fast for us to identify.”

“I see, how long will it take you to connect the Floo network to Baker Street”

“Only a few minutes Sir”.

“Do it.”

Sherlock’s Mind Palace

There is something wrong with his mind palace. He stands in the entry way at the bottom of the grand staircase and sees the decay of his genius. The rich treasury of his thoughts cracked and peeling, opulent carpets threadbare and mildewed.

Fleur is standing there waiting for him.

“It’s not like what you imagined is it? No flash of light, no cloud of smoke. Your heart just…stops…You’re almost certainly going to die, so we need to focus.”

“Wait, _almost certainly_? Has anyone ever survived breaking an unbreakable vow?”

“No, but a muggle has never taken one before either.”

Fleur takes him gently by the hand and begins leading him down a corridor the white of an overexposed photograph. She turns back to face him, her silvery voice ringing out like a bell.

“You’re going to feel the pain soon, this is your organs being starved of oxygen. You have to control the pain and...”

Before she can explain, one of the doors in the hallway flies open with a dull clunk and Mary steps out blocking their way, shadows roiling out of the doorway after her like smoke. She is wearing the tatters of her wedding dress, the sleeves ripped off to reveal her tattoo, grotesque and writhing on her arm.

The sight of her sends a ripple of disgust down Sherlock’s spine. He lashes out with as much contempt in his voice as he can muster.

“You, how could you? How could you have killed those people? And for what? Because Magnussen could have exposed you? You could have just left town. Voldemort is dead, no one would have followed you.”

Mary smiles her shark-smile that does not reach her eyes.

“Oh Sherlock, poor baby, you just don’t understand do you?

Magnussen got what was coming to him. I have done far worse than that for fun… You know what the trick is? When I hurt someone _it does not hurt me_.

But you always feel it don’t you, Sherlock? But you don’t have to! Pain. Heartbreak. Loss…Death cures all ills.

Besides sweetheart, John is a good man, why would he  stay with a sociopath like you? Come on, Sherlock. Just die, why can’t you? One little push, and off you pop.”

The shadows at her feet start boiling towards him, obscuring the hallway in front of them.

Sherlock cries out in horror and confusion. “What the hell is that? What’s happening?” 

Mycroft’s voice echoes through the gloom.  “You’re dying Sherlock.”

“What do I do?” It is the pleading voice of a child that comes out. His voice from when the world was filled with wonder and Mycroft was still his hero. Before friendlessness and cocaine and despair.

“Don’t die obviously.”

“But how Myc?”

“There is a room in your mind palace that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that will save you. Find it.”

With a panting breath Sherlock screws his eyes closed. When he opens his eyes, he sees a streak of red the colour of a candle flame chasing away the shadows.

It is Redbeard, his beloved childhood pet, fur brighter than it had ever been in life. 

Sherlock's mind is flooded with the sense memory of lazy days playing pirates, his faithful companion at his side. The tang of summer in the air and the sense of possibility stretching out infinitely ahead of him.

“Here, boy. Come on!”

As he ruffles the warm fur under his hand he keeps up a quiet litany of “It’s okay. It’s all right.” He is not sure if it is for his dog’s benefit or his own.

“They’re putting me down too, now. It’s no fun, is it?”

In reply, his first friend grows brighter and brighter until he is almost phoenix-like in his brilliance. Looking back as though to make sure Sherlock is following, Redbeard begins trotting down the corridor, puppy playful again until they come to a door. Here he stops almost reverently and nudges it open with his nose until it is open wide enough that Sherlock can see in. 

Inside is a thousand Baker Streets. Hot tea in the morning before John and he were parted by lies and grief. Melancholy afternoons pouring his love for John into a waltz to be danced with someone else. Bittersweet dreams of future nights spent with John curled warm against his back.

Sherlock realizes what he kept locked in that room. The courage to love again, knowing that one would eventually be parted by time or by fate but to do so anyway. It was easy to tell John he loved him knowing that he was about to die. The hard part would be loving John knowing that he would live. That John might leave him through choice or in the dying light of old age. 

It would be _so_ easy to stay here in the hall. To let it all go and fade away with the memory of John’s lips on his. Ahead is the possibility of future heartbreak and behind is stillness and peace.

When Sherlock steps through the door it is not as a great man, it is as a good one.

Baker Street

Sherlock opens his eyes with a gasp, John’s name in his mouth like a prayer.

He feels like his head is full of cotton wool, and his chest is on fire ( _two ribs broken, maybe three?_ ). Two stunned looking paramedics are looking down at him, one holding a clipboard, the other a used endotracheal tube, bag still attached.

“What happened?” he croaks.

John turns to him, chalk white, face wet with tears, looking all the world like he has seen a ghost. He stands there frozen for a second and then explodes into motion.

“Oh God Sherlock. I thought you were dead. You _were dead._ Oh God I think I am going to faint.”

Before Sherlock can find out if John is actually going to faint or if he is being his usual melodramatic self, there is a tremendous bang and Mycroft and Anthea come tumbling out of the fireplace in a swirl of green flames.

For a long moment everyone just stares at the new arrivals before all hell breaks loose.

One of the paramedics starts screaming about ‘zombies and now ghosts’ while the other begins backing away slowly towards the door.

Mycroft takes in the scene. Sherlock is lying on the floor looking like death warmed over, while John is trying his best to drown out the screams with a litany of increasingly colourful profanity all the while patting Sherlock over as though checking for injuries.

Focussing on the slowly escaping paramedic he brushes the ash off his coat and fixes him with a stern glare. 

“You, the one who is not screaming. What happened?”

The paramedic looks like he is seriously considering bolting for the door but is somehow able to muster the professionalism to answer.

“We got a call that someone was in cardiac arrest. We got here and he (he points accusingly towards Sherlock for emphasis) had no vital signs. We intubated him, administered 1 mg of epinephrine and 40 units of vasopressin and continued CPR but his heart was unresponsive. We were just getting ready to call time of death when he…umm….stopped being dead and you… err.. got here” he finishes lamely. 

The other paramedic had mercifully stopped screaming and had progressed to hyperventilating and muttering to himself.

“Anthea, can you have a look at Sherlock?”

Anthea holds her wand out and begins quietly talking under her breath while waving it slowly over Sherlock. John is reminded of someone using the metal detector at the airport.

“Looks like the worst of it is cracked ribs sir, do you want me to fix them?”

“Yes please.”

“John” she says, not unkindly. “You will have to step back for a moment.” John looks mutinous for a second but realizes that there is probably no use arguing with someone who had just appeared out of their fireplace.

Unclenching his hands from their death grip on his friend’s shirt, he steps back. Anthea begins tapping Sherlock on the chest in different places, all the while talking quietly in what sounds to John like latin. 

With Sherlock left to Anthea’s ministrations, John turns to Mycroft with the look of a man possessed.

“Ok, can someone tell me _what the buggering bloody fuck_ is going on here? One minute Sherlock is fine, then he was spouting nonsense, then was dead, then he wasn’t, then you two come bursting out of the bloody fireplace like the ghost of bloody Christmas Past!”

“John, I think when Anthea is finished with him, you and my brother and I need to have a long chat”.

“I’m done here sir.” Anthea calls out in an admirably calm voice. Do you want me to take care of the paramedics now?”

“Yes, can you take them down to the Other Ministry and have someone take a look at them?”

“Understood sir.”

With that she takes them by the hands like two frightened children, and leads them out of the apartment. As she goes, John can hear her speaking to them quietly about “top secret government experiments” and the need for “debriefing.”

Sherlock pushes himself slowly to his knees and  clears his throat roughly.

“Mycroft, we have to get out of here. It’s not safe.”

John helps Sherlock to his feet, holding onto his hand so tightly that his knuckles are white. 

Mycroft’s normally controlled facade is cracking. There is real emotion in his voice when he speaks.

“Why? What did you do? Were you playing with some enchanted object to show off in front of John and it blew up in your face? You could have been killed!”

“It was an unbreakable vow actually” Sherlock responds quietly.

Mycroft blanches. “You broke an unbreakable vow? What were you thinking?”

Sherlock turns to answer John instead of Mycroft. “As you have no doubt figured out by now, during my time ‘away’ I became aware of certain things. Things my brother obviously knows about too, seeing as you just witnessed him appearing out of the fireplace. To make a long story short, magic is real. I found out about it and I had to take a vow that I would not reveal anything that I learned in order to protect the people that helped me. The danger to them is past but the vow was still binding.”

“So what happened” asks Mycroft impatiently.

“Mary…” John grits his teeth, ignoring Mycroft. “Before you collapsed you said Mary killed them, Magnussen and that MP,  you said that I needed protection because she was a death eater?”

“Yes, I will explain it all later, but now we need to get out of here!”

Mycroft is just pulling his phone out of his pocket when  he is interrupted by a shout.

_“Petrificus Totalus Tria!”_ There is a flash of blue light and the three of them find themselves paralyzed. 

“The name is Aggripina actually.”  Mary calls out almost playfully from the landing. 

“I can’t say how pleased I am to find all three of you here. I was just planning on killing John and Sherlock, but you Mycroft, you have been in my sights for ages. I never thought I would actually get the chance to do it! The Dark Lord would have been so happy…”

Sherlock can only watch in mute horror as she saunters in, wand ( _7 1/2” hawthorne_ ) held in front of her like an epee.  

“What, cat got your tongue? Sorry, I probably should have mentioned it, that was a full body bind curse. You can’t move, you can’t speak, you are totally at my mercy…

I have to say, I like it better this way. No tedious begging.

Now who should I kill first?” She begins to sing softly to herself, swinging her wand back and forth between the three of them

_Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,_

_Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,_

_Shrewd Slytherin from fen._

She raises her wand to point directly at Mycroft.

“Aveda…”

The crack is deafening in the small space. Mary looks down to see a perfectly neat hole in her stomach, a crimson stain spreading slowly across her abdomen. Mary spins drunkenly to face the door, her wand dropping with a clatter from suddenly numb fingers.

“You?” Mary’s voice comes out as an incredulous whisper.

Mrs. Hudson steps in from the hall, a battered Smith & Wesson pistol held with cold competence.

“You forgot Hufflepuff dear. I don’t think I ever told you about my nephew Colin did I _Aggripina_? He was only 16 years old and your people murdered him. Nothing will ever bring him back, but this is for my sister you bint!”

The second bullet is surgical in its efficiency. It hits Mary right over the heart severing her aorta and tearing through her spinal column before slamming harmlessly into the wall. She is dead before she hits the ground.

 

Author’s Notes

WRT to asystole, the Coles note version of this is that if your heart is not beating at all (as opposed to a heart that is just not beating properly, where you can shock the heart back into rhythm with the AED paddles), survival rates are a dismal 2 percent. 

You may recognize Mycroft’s mind palace speech as the one Dumbledore gave to Harry explaining what is kept in the Department of Mysteries….

Mary's song was 'borrowed' from the sorting hat. He does not mind.

The Simmons sisters were born 24 years apart. The oldest- Martha Louise married Mr. Hudson. The youngest married Mr. Creevey and had two children, Colin and Dennis. Colin was tragically murdered during the Battle of Hogwarts on May 2nd. On the stag night, Mrs. Hudson returned from the funeral early surprising John in a compromising position...


	6. Sussex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stop.” John’s voice is cold and brittle. “I don’t want to even think about that right now. There is something I have to say to you and you have to listen. You have to listen or there is no chance of us being together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If that is your thing you can follow me on Tumblr @ http://bronzedviolets.tumblr.com/
> 
> I spend way to much time there…
> 
> Thank you again to Styky for your input as this story was developed and to everyone that read this! 
> 
> P.S. If anyone wants to do art or use it to practice their translation skills full props to you! (Although maybe I am the only person who practices their second language by translating erotic fan-fiction?)

When Mary collapses the binding curse breaks and John, Sherlock, and Mycroft all stumble free. Mycroft immediately begins relaying clipped orders over his phone, while  John and Sherlock rush to Mrs. Hudson’s side. As John looks her over with a critical eye for signs of shock, Sherlock finds himself uncharacteristically tongue tied.  He wants to ask her about her marksmanship, to interrogate her about the deceased nephew, and to commend her on her timing, but he can’t seem to get any words out past the lump in his throat.  He settles for sweeping her into a tight hug and relaxing into her grandmother smell of lavender water and baking. After a long moment he turns to catch John’s eye but he has busied himself with an examination of the gun. 

The next hour passes in a blur of aborted explanations and a larger and larger number of people in the flat. Some are clearly Mycroft’s people with the bland and unremarkable look of MI5, while others are just as obviously witches and wizards. The two camps migrate to opposite ends of the sitting room and seem to communicate primarily through distrustful glares (MI5) and unvarnished curiosity (the witches and wizards). Sherlock is able to gather that the Ministry of Magic has sent Aurors to the scene with the intention of obliviating the lot of them but Mycroft had coldly informed them that while they are free to collect the body, he would be dealing with the rest of the situation in a more conventional manner. Sherlock is absolutely itching to understand why on earth MI5 is involved, but he can not stomach the thought of _asking_ his brother to explain. While John and Mrs. Hudson are debriefed by a solemn man who looks like an accountant and a second man who looks like he narrowly escaped a house fire and consequently had to dress himself in a random assortment of his neighbour’s clothes, Mycroft finally takes pity on him.

“The team I called in are squibs, if you were wondering. Most of them are fully integrated into the muggle world but don’t fall under the Statute of Secrecy”

“Non-magical people borne to wizarding families? Damn, I should have thought of that.”

“They are an excellent asset for dealing with the more...unusual situations that impact Her Majesty’s Government” Mycroft replies blandly.

“And pray tell, how are you mixed up in all this?”

“Oh brother mine, in addition to my regular duties, as you must have deduced, I have a very minor position as the liaison between our governments.”

Sherlock is about to press for more details when he realizes that on balance he probably would rather not know, although he does plan at taking a closer look at Mycroft’s umbrella the next time the opportunity presents itself. 

***

It is a geological age before everyone finally leaves and Sherlock has a chance to really look at John. What he sees sends a cold sliver of fear arcing up his spinal column. John looks grey, the fine lines around his mouth pronounced and pained looking, the shadows beneath his eyes dark as bruises. 

“John? Are you..umm. all right? I know the magic is a lot to take in and Mary…”

“Stop.” John’s voice is cold and brittle. “I don’t want to even think about that right now. There is something I have to say to you and you have to listen. You have to listen or there is no chance of us being together.”

Sherlock feels the chill spread to the marrow of his bones. He feels the fault lines spreading and fears that one false step will make him crack apart like rotten ice. All he can do is give a small shaky nod.

John sniffs quietly and begins to speak. 

“One night back in Afghanistan my unit was on a routine patrol, the whole sector had been cleared and we were on our way back to the FOB. We were about 30 seconds out and everyone was in high spirits. One of the Corporals, I think it was Jenkins, was telling this story about some stupid thing one of his mates had done and he punched me hard right in the shoulder like he was emphasizing a point. I thought he was taking the piss and I was turning around to give him a right bollocking when I saw the blood running down my arm and realized that I had been shot. All I could think was ‘please God let me live, my last moments on earth can’t be hearing about this tosser’s idiot friends.’ The next thing I knew I was lying face-up in the sand staring up at the stars while someone screamed. It was an ugly noise, practically inhuman. It took me a few seconds to realize it was me. What I remember most about that moment is that feeling, knowing that I was being murdered yet being a million miles from myself. It did not matter whether I wanted to live, the tether that held me to my life, my job, my mates had snapped and I was about to float away, right up to those cold stars. 

Do you know how many people I have seen die Sherlock? By my hand as a soldier and in my care as a doctor? No? Good, because I don’t either. I lost count. Do you know what I do remember though? When I was 17 years old I watched my mum die of lung cancer. I sat with her on the too small hospital mattress and held her hand as she passed. You know what I did? I wept. I sat quietly and wept. I was sad and it hurt like a gaping wound but I moved past it. 

Do you know what I felt when I watched you jump off Barts? And again today when I watched you die right here in front of me on the bloody sitting room floor? I felt that feeling again. That the thread of the plot of my life had been cut. Do you know what that sodding means Sherlock? That for me, losing you is on par with being fucking murdered, with bleeding to death in the desert thousands of miles from home.”

John stops for a minute and scrubs at his eyes, his spine regimental straight and his other fist clenching and unclenching like a heart. He grits his teeth and continues, staccato sharp.

“What I am trying to say is _don’t you dare do that to me again_ , don’t think that you can die to save me. Do you hear me Sherlock? I swear to God I will not live through that again. I will put a bullet in my own brain if I have to.”

Sherlock can only stare numbly at John, mouth agape. He knows what John is saying is ‘more than a bit not good’ but he can not find it in himself to care. He had died for John and lived for John, but he had never once let himself wonder how he would have felt if their roles were reversed. He realizes with a rush of love so intense it feels like sickness that John knew that about him all along and still loved him despite his catastrophic failings as a human being. Suddenly light headed, Sherlock stumbles over to his chair and sinks down. He feels flayed. Like John had taken his clever scalpel and opened him up from sternum to pubic bone, exposing every shameful secret, the stinking meat of him.

The two of then stay there for a long time; Sherlock trembling in his chair and John in an uneasy parade rest, eyes fixed on the sliver of darkening sky between the curtains.

Sherlock finally gets up with trembling knees. The time for speaking has passed. He takes John by the hand and leads him silently to the bathroom. He turns the taps to hot and starts running the shower. Turning back, he reverently unbuttons John’s shirt and slacks and tenderly unclothes him. Shucking the ruins of his own suit he guides them under the warm spray. He takes his own shower gel and gently scrubs John down from the top of his head to his battered feet. Despite countless nights spent dreaming about John naked before him, he does not even begin to get hard. This is not about sex, not tonight. When he has cleaned the scent of panic and grief off the best he can, he stops the water, and after giving himself a perfunctory pat down, carefully dries John off. He then wraps him in his favourite dressing gown and leads him purposefully to bed. 

That night and the next and the next he holds John and whispers in his ears all of the things he meant to tell him but never did. He holds John as he cries for Mary, because even though she was a murderer, she was his wife and he had loved her once. In return, he tells John about Shell Cottage and Redbeard and cocaine and about being young and so desperately lonely. John holds him tighter and wipes away his quiet tears with calloused fingers. 

They kiss and they kiss and they pass secrets into each other's mouths, but things are still too raw to move much further. The spark is there nonetheless, the unspoken promise of _more_ moving like electricity between them.

Over time the exposed fracture of Mary and the fall finally begins to heal. There will always be scars and tender places that ache sometimes in the dead of night, but the foundation of bone and flesh are knit together stronger than before.

***

When John lays Sherlock down for the first time it is on Sussex Green sheets. It had been a quiet day, no cases on and they had spent the bulk of it in the companionable silence unique to the dearest of friends and the happily married. 

As the heat of the afternoon begins to taper off John decides to go for a quick run. He digs out his gym kit, and with a quick detour to playfully ruffle Sherlock’s curls he heads for the door.  Sherlock makes a disgruntled noise and does not look up from the microscope but John does not miss the slight blush that rises up to grace his cheekbones.

Smiling to himself John heads down the steps and begins a steady lope down Baker Street towards Regent’s park. By the time he reaches the York Bridge his muscles have pleasantly loosened up. He heads around the Outer Circle lost in the steady rhythm of his breathing and the tidal pumping of his own heart.  When he makes it back to the flat three quarters of an hour later he is breathing roughly and damp with sweat but he feels better than he has in months. He calls out a quick hello to Sherlock and heads through to the kitchen to grab a drink. After filling up a tumbler from the tap he raises it to his lips and drinks greedily, eyes closed in pleasure. 

He sets the glass back down in the sink to wash later and is about to head for the shower when he hears a clatter from behind him. Startled, he spins around, hand scrabbling uselessly for a gun he is not wearing.

Sherlock has stood up from the microscope so abruptly that he has upended his chair. He is just standing there mute, staring at John with eyes blown so wide that the pupil has all but eclipsed his irises. His hair is mussed even more than when John left and his mouth is slightly open, just a hint of pink tongue darting out to wet his plump lower lip. If that was not enough to get the blood rushing to John’s groin, Sherlock is hard, his erection obscenely tenting the soft fabric of his pyjama bottoms. It is singularly the most erotic thing John had ever witnessed in his entire life.

They stand there frozen for an instant and then the spark explodes into a conflagration and they are crashing together. Sherlock grabs John’s face with his big hands and starts desperately nipping at his lips, pleading for entry with his tongue. All the while John can’t stop himself from grabbing at that plush backside trying to pull him closer.  The height difference between them is too great for there to be any real friction but when John feels Sherlock’s cock hard and hot against his stomach he feels his own cock jerk, a bead of pre-come dampening his pants.

With a groan, John breaks the kiss to catch his breath. 

“Oh God Sherlock, the things I am going to do to you.” Growling low in his throat John begins to back Sherlock towards the bedroom. When Sherlock’s knees hit the mattress, John gives him a gentle shove over onto his back and climbs right astride him, cock grinding mercilessly against Sherlock’s.

“Wait, John, if you.. uhh.. keep doing that this is going to be over rather quickly.”

“Oh I am counting on it love. We can take things more slowly the next time but I have been waiting for this moment for _years_ and right now I am about 30 seconds from going off like a bloody firecracker.”

All Sherlock can do is groan and thrust up against John’s rigid length. With a wicked grin, John sits up and begins to shimmy Sherlock’s pyjama bottoms down and off. His cock springs free, flushed and pulsing, the foreskin already fully retracted. John carefully kneels down on the floor between Sherlock's spread thighs and groans long and low.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I am allowed to see you like this, to touch you. Do you know how beautiful you are? You are the most brilliant person I have ever met. I love you so fucking much Sherlock.”

“Oh, John, it’s yours, everything has always been all for you. What do you want? You can have what ever you want.”

John answers him with a bruising kiss and then sinks back to his knees and bends down to take that perfect cock into his mouth for the first time. His own groin pulses with tension as he takes in the musky tang and the feel of the velvety skin against his lips. He soon figures out that if he holds the base with one hand he can control how deep he takes him in. A little more confident that he is not going to be inadvertently choked, he begins to bob his head experimentally up and down. When he is rewarded with a bloom of pre-ejaculate across his tongue and he can’t help but begin to frott himself against the side of the mattress, desperate to relieve the growing ache in his balls. He incorporates a gentle suck to the crown and immediately feels Sherlock tense and then grow impossibly harder in his mouth. He realizes with a sense of wonder that Sherlock is about to come. Seconds later Sherlock gives a hoarse shout and John’s mouth is flooded with pulse after pulse. John barely has the time to pull down his running shorts and give his own cock a rough tug before he is shaking and swearing and spilling into his hand. 

When John finally catches his breath, he shuffles over to the night table for a tissue to clean his hand and then promptly collapses in a boneless heap on the bed next to Sherlock. 

“Now I really need a shower” John chuckles. 

“Later.” Sherlock makes it clear that he has no intention of letting John leave anytime soon by throwing one arm across John’s chest and aggressively nestling his head in the space between John’s collarbone and neck. As twilight falls across London, John drifts off to the steady metronome of Sherlock’s breathing, feeling warm and loved and knowing that what ever happens, it would be the two of them against the world.

Author’s Notes

FOB is Forward Operating Base

Sussex Green (HC-109) is legit a Benjamin Moore paint colour inspired by “18th and 19th century architecture.”

I tried to keep it a little open ended regarding how much time passed between Mary’s death and them consummating their relationship, but it is my intent that it is to be interpreted as anywhere between three days and whatever you the reader feels would be appropriate for the characters.


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